Contrastive Study Of The Grammaticalization Of "kan" And "look"

Grammaticalization is a concept introduced from abroad, whose theory is very important in linguistic study. It has been defined as the process for all language items to expand their grammatical meaning and function. They are always symbolized in the form of systematic changes at different levels such as pronunciation, semantics, syntax and so on. Grammaticalization study is a trend of present linguistic development. It focuses on explanation of synchronic change at diachronic level by combining synchronic and diachronic study together.Both"kan"and"look"are the most frequently and widely used verbs in daily life, and we usually view them as counterparts in translation and English teaching and learning. There is a lot of research on grammaticalization and that of"kan"while the study of the grammaticaliztion of"look"is much less. Let alone contrastive study of the two."kan"and"look"have strong correspondence in semantic meaning and share similar evolution process and mechanisms, but in their long process of grammaticalization, they show great differences because of pragmatic, psychological reasons. Therefore, it is necessary to collect materials that related to the grammaticalization of"look", and furthermore, to make contrastive study of the two words.This paper aims to explore the similarities and differences of"kan"and"look"through contrastive study of their grammaticalization. The study will be helpful for us to understand the differences and characteristics of both languages, and beneficial to translation and English teaching and learning. Moreover, it could works as a reference for related study in future. The study shows that"kan"and"look"not only have strong correspondence semantically, but also share similar evolving pathways and mechanisms. Originally,"kan"and"look"were just vision verbs indicating"to make eye contact". Gradually, many other meanings developed to meet the demand of expression. The evolution of the vision verbs cognition scheme, during this process, has expanded from the physical space scheme to the psychological space scheme as well as parole space scheme. The main evolving mechanisms were metaphor and metonymy.However,"kan"and"look"show great differences in semantic extension and functional expansion."kan"first was used to denote visual behavior"to make eye contact to men or substance". Many other semantic meanings developed based on this:"to watch or read";"to pay a visit";"to concern or take care";"to cure";"to observe". Based on the meaning of"to observe"several other semantic meanings developed:"judge or estimate";"to try";"to consider";"to remind or suggest";"to be decided by". Contrary to this, the grammatical process of"look"was much simpler. Likewise,"look"was first used to denote visual behavior. Many other meanings derived from this:"to face"and its subject changed from human beings to substances;"to search"and it emphasized purpose and intention;"to appear or to seem"and it denoted subjective estimation and modality expression based on observation; just worked as a functional word to emphasis or attract attention.There are more differences in their functions. In the process of gammaticalization, the functions of"kan"were increased. It takes more functions beside"behavior verb"such as tentative language particle, discourse marker, functional marker to denote future tense and modal marker. However, the function of"look"is confined to discourse marker besides action verb.Besides,"kan"is higher than"look"in grammaticalization degree. There are many reasons causing the similarities and differences mentioned above. Because of the similar cognitive mode shared by the whole human race and some language commonness, there are some common cognitive patterns common to all human beings However, English and Chinese may be different because they belong to different language families. Chinese is basically an analytic language whose system is primarily based on the word order, lexical words and modal particles. However, English is more of a synthetic language, which depends more on inflections. Therefore, in the case of Chinese, in order to meet the need of expression it has to add more meanings to old words or to make new collocations based on old vocabularies. In the case of English, however, things are very different. Most of these problems can be solved by derivation or inflection. Therefore, it's no wonder that"kan"takes more meaning and is higher than"look"in the degree of grammaticalization. Furthermore, historical and cultural background will have great influence on the evolution of language.